Thursday, May 15, 2008

Where the squirrels are

A few weeks after hanging up my new birdfeeder out in the back yard, I looked out one day and to my horror found that it was no longer hanging. It was on the ground with a pesky squirrel (who had chewed through and broken the hanger) happily munching away at its contents. As if what the birds had dropped on the ground wasn't enough for the critter. So when I saw a video titled Squirrel Wars and How to Win Them, I decided to watch and see what they had to say.The emphasis was on placing a feeder 5 feet off the ground with a clearance of 7 feet on both sides and 9 feet on the top. How on earth you would fill the feeder, I don't know. A pogo stick perhaps. Other things suggested were:

Empty soda bottles attached to a wire (squirrels slip off them when the bottles spin).

Dome baffles or some sort of inverted cone on top of the feeder.

Wire mesh.

A slinky attached to the bottom pole so the squirrel ends up with a bouncy ride which looks very amusing.

Some more ideas from the internet:

Mix hot pepper in the birdseed. The capsaicin within is too spicy for mammals but the birds don't taste it. (Although it will bother the birds eyes, so this doesn't seem like a good solution to keep birds around.)

Put cayenne pepper and crisco on the pole or any wires near the feeder. Slip and slide time.